Apple’s must have gadget is given the Japan treatment….

The iPhone presented a bit of a dilemma to the Japanese tech crowd. It closed the once monumental gap between the western world and Japanese mobile phone technology. In fact the iPhone pretty much surpassed it. But for some bizarre reason the Japanese never jumped on the iPhone trend like we did. Perhaps simply to smite Apple for toppling their keitai dominance? Who knows…It may very well have been because the original iPhone didn’t offer to the Japanese market what they look for in a handset; useless functionality, terrible ergonomics and a big enough area to stick glitter and general Japanese twinkliness to.

I have two phones in Japan, an iPhone and a Sony Ericsson. My Sony is standard Japanese phone fare; TV, insane number of megapixel camera, built like a transformer and comes with a nice area to dangle phone jewellery from. All this however is totally useless, but the Japanese like useless. They like technological arrogance, the idea that they have already invented it all so they may as well go an design something stupid just to laugh in our western faces. Look at Honda’s hydrogen fuel cell, after proving they could do away with fossil fuels altogether Honda went about designing the world’s most elaborate wheelchair.

The sheer functionality of the iPhone just didn’t make sense out in Japan, initially…… However the iPhone craze has well and truly begun with the launch of the 3Gs. What does this mean? The app store is being flooded with Japanese ultra-high tech apps, third party hardware for the phone is beginning to emerge and sticker companies are designing new sticky stuff to stick to the phones shiny back….

So for you iPhone savvy westerners out there, here is a list of apps and gear you just can’t get to make you jealous. And for those Japanese new to the iPhone but missing their old phones 10 megapixel camera, read on and you will see what your new phone can really do…

Miruko

Computer games in Japan mean big business, but mobile phones mean even bigger. With the country currently at the forefront phone technology you would expect the iphone to seem like old news, not so, apples infectious wrath of trendy technology domination has taken hold. That doesn’t mean the iphone is lo-tech in Japan, companies have began to make use of the phones gaming capabilities to put their own high-tech touches to apples pocket wonder. Perhaps the most bizarre of them all is the recently announced Miruko app and accessory. It sees the lucky user attaching a furry robotic eye to their wrist and walking around hunting for invisible ‘monsters’. The eye makes use of wifi and a camera to sense its surrounding environment for virtual enemies, it then ‘looks’ at the monster and its wearer must follow its line of sight. Once found, a picture is taken with the iphone camera and the monster collected. Who said hide and seek was old….

The original iPhone didn’t go down to well in Japan. Spend five minutes on the train over here and you will quickly notice that nearly everyone watches TV on their phones. But with the recent announcement of the 3gs Japanese telecoms giant Softbank lumbered with the then unpopular phone, decided to take on the question of TV. They came up with the 1-Seg TV tuner/battery pack for the iphone, which if its capabilities weren’t already enough, allows you to tune into Japanese terrestrial TV on the move (why you would want to I don’t know). It connects with the phone over wifi and looks pretty much the same, just without a screen and comes with a cable to give the iPhone a bit of extra juice. Costing around 9850 yen (60 pounds) and giving superb almost digital quality TV its helped propel the iPhone to the forefront of Japanese consumerism.

Sekai Camera

This one only applies if you are one of the lucky few who’s iPhone bears that little S after the 3G. Of which I am not.

Sekai Camera has taken Japan by storm with millions of the countries 3Gs users inundating the app with all sorts of weird and wacky info about Tokyo’s streets. The app acts as a sort of 3d live blogging software with users being able to geotag anything they have found in and around Tokyo with the iPhone’s camera. These pictures are then mapped out into a live feed which comes in through the iPhones camera treating you to a sort of 3d live view map of what is cool around you. The first time you see it it is truly awesome, with everything just popping up as small floating stills on a live feed from the phones camera. You can see how much food costs, which direction the nearest tube station is, as well as all the other little gems which people have found and tagged. The only problem with Sekai is it is also a sort of social networking device and as such has been filled with a lot of pictures of people standing in front of meaningless objects with their mates; a sort of 3d facebook if you will. This app is a really hard one to explain and to be honest its best just to download it and have a go, believe me its seriously high-tech stuff.

Sleep Cycle

Not an app invented in Japan but one that has really only achieved popularity over here. Sleep Cycle essentially makes sure you sleep properly by making an extremely clever use of the iPhone’s built in acceleromiter. Simply put the app measures all the movement in your sleep and “knows” when you are in a light or deep sleep, waking you up at the best possible moment within 30 minutes of your alarm. It takes a few days to get going as the app needs to calibrate properly but once it does you will wake up feeling more refreshed than you ever have before. It is a must if you live in the centre of Tokyo and find yourself boarding your room up to keep out all the noise and lights of the city. A word of warning though, it will wake you up early if it thinks its best so don’t bother turning it on for the Sunday morning lie-in. Oh and it sucks juice out of the battery like nothing else.